Gordon Brown connected with his audience and bought himself time

Not bad, not bad at all. Gordon Brown used to be a jollier, more pyrotechnic speaker in opposition days long ago, but he was never going to be another Abraham Lincoln and doesn't want to be a Tony Blair. For today's speech, the one that really mattered, he pulled out the stops and connected with his audience.

Which audience? The one in the cavernous Manchester conference hall certainly. The prime minister's recurring theme was "fairness" – in Britain and (very much an afterthought) in the wider world. As Brown reminded them, Labour activists came into politics to do that sort of thing.

They clapped him repeatedly and gave several half-standing ovations as he defended Labour's achievements since 1997 and promised to add to them with better health- and childcare, free scrips for the long-term sick, that internet connection for poor kids and other modest, incremental steps.

But the key connection was emotional. Here Brown did better than he has done previously. Introduced by his wife, Sarah (was that wise in a man who proclaimed the virtues of family privacy?), he went some way to acknowledging his faults – too serious, too stubborn over that 10p tax rate – but insisted repeatedly that he cares only for the public good, for fairness.

Because he is his very Presbyterian father's son, that means fairness for those who work hard and play by society's rules. "We will create rules that reward those who play by them and punish those who don't. That's what fairness means to me," he said. And "our aim is a something for something, nothing for nothing Britain".

But the real connection, an improvement for Brown, was in the way he pressed the emotional buttons with images that were tangible, not abstract, a recurring Brown weakness. Thus, the mother whose new job saves her from the loan shark, the father who survives cancer to walk his daughter up the aisle, the entrepreneur who takes on apprentices.

The audience in the packed hall liked all this. But what of the wider public, the sceptical audience that, so the polls suggest, has virtually written him off? It will take more than a speech to persuade them. But today Brown took one crucial necessary step: he stabilised his party, at least for now. He will probably stay in office into 2009.

Brown's next Herculean task is to help stabilise the tottering global financial system. Britain can do some of that alone – and has to – but much of it only in cooperation with other major players, not all of them – China, India, Brazil – as influential in the system as they should be.

He defended what he and Alistair Darling had done so far to stave off disaster – rescuing Northern Rock, and the rest – and offered some ideas of what might happen in the future: better banking rules, sensible pay packages, tighter global supervision of the delinquent financial sector.

All good stuff, carefully offsetting crowd-pleasing passages with reassurances that Labour – the cabinet, at least – still believes in a market economy. Just as the old dogma of big government (he once supported it) was wrong, so has the "dogma of unbridled market forces been proved wrong".

Brown praised most of his cabinet by name, though David Miliband had to wait until near the end of the 59-minute speech. Tony Blair - after all - the first man mentioned, David Cameron not mentioned by name until close to the end.

"I'm all in favour of apprenticeships, but I can tell you this is no time for a novice." It was a rare attempt at humour before he piled into the cuts a Cameron government would make – and the folly of its naive belief in markets.

There was still too much about British exceptionalism for some tastes - do we still always have to have the best armed forces in the world? Isn't "pretty good" good enough? - and easy talk about heroes in frontline public services. Those promises on policy he made will be unpicked and found wanting.

But for today it was enough. Slower, better delivery than usual, too. Perhaps he can change, adapt to new, demanding times. Brown has bought himself time.